5 People Behind Big Inventions: Video Portraits

David Friedman films the creative but ordinary inventors who brought us the digital camera, wheelchair brakes, and more

For the past few years, New-York-based photographer David Friedman
has been taking portraits of inventors--those ordinary people who came
up with ordinary-seeming things that transform lives, often our lives,
in extraordinary ways. Rather than lofty and fluff-padded, like many
such efforts tend to be, these profiles blend humility with creative
restlessness, demystifying invention and reframing it not as the idle
blessing of some arbitrary muse but as the product of combinatorial creativity and one's everyday life experience.

STEVEN SASSON: THE DIGITAL CAMERA

If
you're an Instagram obsessive like I am, you're grateful for the
advances in digital imaging on a daily basis. But they didn't just
"happen." In 1975, American electrical engineer Steven Sasson
began exploring ideas that eventually led to his invention of the
digital camera, the patent for which was officially issued in 1978,
paving the way for the imaging revolution. This portrait was taken
shortly before President Obama awarded Sasson the National Medal of Technology.

"The
options the average person has today for imaging [are] unlimited. You
walk around with you cell phone or digital camera today, and the
pictures are excellent, they're reliably produced, you can share them
instantly. I like to say to inventors, 'Be aware that your invention is
in an environment when the rest of the world is inventing along with
you, and so by the time the idea matures, it'll be in a totally
different world. I think that was the case with the digital camera."

TAMI GALT: FOLDING WAGON

Looking
for an easy way to carry her groceries back from the farmers' market that
didn't make her look like a wire-cart-dragging old lady, Tami Galt came up with the Fold It & Go portable wagon, quitting her nine-to-five job to work on the seemingly kooky creation.

"One
day, my boss was yelling at one of my coworkers and I'm like, 'I gotta
do something else, this isn't working.' So I just looked through my book
of ideas, I looked at which one I liked the best, and said, 'That's
what I'm working on!'"

JERRY FORD: WHEELCHAIR BRAKE SYSTEM

When crop farmer Jerry Ford's
son was working at a nursing home and noted the need for a braking
system that would prevent wheelchair accidents, Ford decided to invent
one.

"The cost of the falls is huge, and the technology is there
to prevent them. Seat belts in cars actually prevent you from getting
more seriously injured in an accident, where my automatic brake system
prevents the accident from ever happening."

TOM ROERING: AMPHIBIOUS VEHICLE

Ice fisherman Tom Roering's
lightweight drivable amphibious vehicle for land, water, and ice that
doubles as an ice-fishing shelter and can also be adapted as an ice
rescue vehicle.

"Ice is never predictable, so each year there is loss of property as well as loss of life."

BRENT FARLEY: MULTIPLE

Brent Farley's
first patent was a "chair for aiding the [conjugal] relationships for
the confirmed"--that is, a chair for having sex on. Farley went on to
become one the most prolific of Friedman's inventors, his creations
ranging from the numbingly utilitarian ("self-hanging hammer" anyone?)
to the gobsmackingly kooky ("wing walker," we're looking at you).